After Tuesday’s heavy one at Carl Cox, it was time for a slightly more relaxed evening as I hit the all new Sands Beach Bar for the first tINI & the Gang party of the summer.
After a short stroll along the beach I arrived to the new location of tINI & The Gang at Sands Ibiza, with Julian Perez providing a warm and relaxed early evening vibe. A lot of the tracks had that raw ‘90s analogue edge to them, which is refreshing to hear on the White Isle given the abundance of tech-house sounds on most nights out – it’s always nice to keep things fresh.
Perez served up a fine selection of deep and jacking tracks from the likes of Nimbus Quartet, Underground Resistance and Phuture Scope. As the evening continued more and more people arrived at the beach venue, the crowd had swelled considerably by the time Fuse boss Enzo Siragusa made it to the decks.
As many of you may know, Enzo has carved out quite an original and trademark sound for himself with many of his selections comprising of heavy, dubby bass lines indebted to early ‘90s garage and jungle. Enzo and Alexkid’s track ‘Kilimanjaro 2’ has been killing it every time I’ve heard it this summer and here it was no different – the rumbling ultra-low-end bass lines hit you hard and the skipping percussion maintained the groove before a breakdown of warm pads and vocals built the tension before another heavy drop.
There’s something about this sound that really gets the parties going – it’s stripped back and intense, yet it gets people dancing every time, as you’ll know if you’ve been to Fuse at Sankeys. For me, the highlight of his set was Rich NxT’s ‘Instate’ – the bass line and the trippy vocals drew me in, but the echoing bells that rung out as the track dropped really sparked my interest. It’s one of those tunes that you’re left thinking about all the way home, desperate to listen to it again.
tINI then stepped up for her return to another summer of beach parties. Kicking things off with some deeper and groovier tunes, the rework of DA Rebels’ ‘House Nation Under a Groove’ had that weirdly infectious vocal worming its way into my mind.
The neon ‘tINI & the Gang’ had to be turned off because of the massive swarm of flies it was attracting, so by this point it was completely dark save for two burning red lights casting an intense glow on the crowd, which turned out to make for the perfect party atmosphere.
As herbal smoke wafted through the crowd, tINI kept up the pace with emotive pads blending fluidly with the grooving percussion. It felt special to be out on the beach, at night, witnessing some of house music’s finest selectors in such an intimate space.
Another of my highlights of the evening was a track off the new Head High record, ‘Megatrap (Mix Mix)’, which sounded nothing short of enormous on the Funktion One sound system they had set up at Sands – such a powerful and so unmistakably a Shed production.
tINI completed the set with a number of atmospheric house cuts to close out the first of many amazing beach parties fittingly. As it struck midnight and the music unfortunately had to stop, I was left with a smile on my face.
It’s free, the location is beautiful, the music is top notch and the atmosphere is perfect. Why wouldn’t you want to join the gang?